Place of Definition, etc., in Philosophical Biology 135 



"In Gallon's Eugenics, founded upon the idea of 

 evolution and the assumption that the human will is in 

 some small measure capable of guiding the course of 

 evolution, we see a scientific realization of Nietzsche's 

 dreams." 



And let no one, especially in this democratic country 

 of ours, neglect to mark well the character of those 

 dreams : Autocracy carried through to its logical end. 

 The best shall rule and "by means of force." The 

 best shall be masters ; the community their slaves, lit- 

 erally and not figuratively. The only law shall be the 

 law of the strong, the fit. 



Those eugenists whose biological philosophy rests on 

 germ-plasmic fatalism, appear not to have recognized 

 probably because the goal is so far away that they 

 face toward an aristocracy most hateful to one who 

 knows what democracy really means. Here again 

 Nietzsche was more far-sighted than his biological coun- 

 terparts, for he clearly saw and loudly proclaimed that 

 supermen must be a very few very select masters with 

 the great common "herd" their slaves. 



And so our discussion turns back to its beginning. 

 The laws of interdependence, of reciprocal connection 

 and action which seem to pervade all living nature and 

 bind it into a great, infinitely complex unity are only a 

 seeming, only an outward manifestation of the ultimate 

 Reality, so many biologists accord with Nietzscheans 

 in declaring. The "web of life" of which the ordinary 



